I was talking to a bunch of guys on my old man softball team about the MLL finals.  These are guys who have coached youth lacrosse for the last few years, have multiple kids playing lacrosse and who have been to a few Cannons games over the past few seasons.  Most of them had no idea that the game was on.  That’s a huge problem.  Championship weekend should be a BIG DEAL, but it ended up playing second fiddle to high school football (which was showing on ESPN) and went completely unadvertised.

New people aren’t going to seek out the games.  The MLL has to build an audience through regularity and repetition.  The league needs to make sure that there’s a game on ESPN every Saturday night during the regular season.  This single act will do far more for the league than any technological change or ownership shenanigans.

Regarding cameras… Although I think your heart is in the right place when it comes to closer camera angles, I think the reality of how quickly the ball moves makes this a non-starter.  Basketball and Hockey are played on much smaller fields of play, so even though you’ve got a lot of motion, you’re free to zoom in because the size of field allows it.

Regarding the rules…  I, too, am not a fan of the amount of specialization that is commonplace in lacrosse these days.  It’s hard to have a guy like Paul Rabil be the pillar that you build the league around when he’s only on the field half of the game. That said, I’d say this falls into the realm of small potatoes.  I don’t think the problem is that people are tuning in and giving up because they don’t understand what’s going on.  The core issue is that people aren’t tuning in- that’s addressed above.

Re: Announcers – I personally think you are dead on. Announcers should focus on accurately explaining what’s going on and leave conversations about lacrosse politics and rule changes for off-camera discussion. Those conversations are not productive at all and do our sport no justice. Whomever the color commentator is should push his energy toward talking about players, their off-field day job, their weapon of choice, etc. etc. I don’t get to hear enough about that kind of stuff and neither do the kids watching at home.

Anyway, I’ll stop blabbering now. Great discussion all around!!

I personally feel no sport is helped more by HD than lacrosse.  The wide angle aspect ratio and higher clarity provides an overview of the field of play and access to seeing (and identifying correctly) the ball handler at all times with the goal in view.  Though it isn’t perfect.

Other sports, like football, baseball, and basketball, not only have more visible balls but benefit from decades upon decades of production experience around the presentation of the game on network and cable television.  Much of that has translated to an enhance experience in HD, but not the amazing shift in watchability that lacrosse has enjoyed. 

As many have alluded to, we are thinking about elements like stick illumination to aid the casual fan, not the hardcore fan.  Parents, channel-flippers, etc. will not make “walk-up” visits to lacrosse television in most instances.  If the stick illumination changes that, then huzzah!

Re: Owner – What if they let Body By Jake talk more and showed his play by play reactions? Would that suffice your appetite for owner entertainment? I’m convinced Jake should have his own reality show.

Re: Practical solutions – This is dead on IMO. I actually think multi-subs is killing new player retention at the high school level. As for camera angles, I’ve always thought they should have basketball cameramen do lacrosse games – what would you think of that?

Re: Gimmicky solutions – This made our new on increasing exposure on tv! http://laxallstars.com/11-ways-to-blow-up-pro-lacrosse-on-television/